Giver's Scale Pauldrons

Giver's Scale Pauldrons catch the morning light and split it into a thousand pale facets, each plate feeling cool to the touch as if still recalling a distant tide. The scales are a soft, moon-bright pearl with a whisper of bronze at the edges, an armor of calm rather than thunder. A shallow groove runs along the outer rim, etched with sigils that look like small hands laid flat in prayer—charity, mercy, the stubborn insistence that a shield can be a gift as much as a weapon. The leather backing is worn smooth by travel, the stitching a map of routes taken and promises kept. They sit on the shoulder with a natural balance, the way a well-worn cloak settles when you bend to lift a child or brace for a tremor in a ruined hall. In the right light, the pauldrons seem to breathe, catching a sigh of wind from some long-ago ceremony. Lore clings to the scales as surely as their weight does. They are said to be forged in the temple workshops of the Givers, where craftsmen believed protection could be a form of generosity—a promise that aid travels with the wearer as surely as armor. The sigils tell a story of relief and refuge, of a world where a shield is not merely a barrier but a shared burden borne for those who cannot bear it alone. Those who have worn them speak of a quiet presence: not a shout, but a steady hand on the elbow, a pledge that help is near when the call goes up. In the field, their value reveals itself in more than defense. They are a statement piece on a frontline healer or a steadfast support who keeps eyes on the backrows while eyes still meet the line of attack. The pauldrons whisper of steadiness, that the wearer has learned to hold the line and still grant mercy—whether by fending off a brutal advance or by offering a moment of reprieve to a fledgling comrade who has forgotten how to stand. They harmonize with builds built on protection, sustain, and rallying presence, turning every shielded breath into a small act of relief for the group. And in the rustle of cloak and chain, they remind a party that a gift is not merely a deliverable—it’s a connection, a thread that binds the team when the map grows cold and the path forward vanishes in murky smoke. Pricing, of course, threads its way through the market like a glittering spool of thread through a seam. I found a note tucked in a saddlebag at Saddlebag Exchange—the sort of place where old stories meet ledger entries. A pristine set tags at a patient, high-price corner, the kind of listing that attracts collectors who value the craftsmanship as much as the stats. A rough consensus places well-preserved Giver's Scale Pauldrons in the hundreds of gold, with lesser fates in the lower ranges if the patina is worn and the sigils show more wear than word. It’s a market that respects history as much as utility, where a single piece of armor becomes a narrative you can wear again and again, a portable piece of someone else’s mercy that you now carry forward in your own journey. And so they travel from hand to hand, from temple to battlefield, a living hinge between gift and guardian in a world that never stops requiring both.